The latest on our data center lawsuits from MCEA’s Chief Legal Officer
By Sarah Horner, MCEA Communications Director
The secrecy, concern, and community outrage surrounding data center proposals advancing across Minnesota has never been higher.
Every day, we’re getting calls from people across the state. They are worried about their water, their power bills, and how their city officials are using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to keep information about these potentially massive projects shielded from the public.
When we first saw the volume of proposals targeting Minnesota communities, we were worried too. But worry isn’t a feeling we can let overwhelm us; it’s a signal that we need to get to work. As we dug into these proposals, we quickly realized that they not only violated our democratic values of transparency and robust public engagement, they violated our environmental laws.
To date, MCEA has filed four lawsuits against cities and developers for engaging in a legally required public review process that falls far short of the standards set out in Minnesota laws.
We asked our Chief Legal Officer, Leigh Currie, to provide the latest on these lawsuits and what MCEA hopes to achieve by filing them.
What’s the status of our data center lawsuits?
Right now, we have lawsuits pending against the cities of North Mankato, Lakeville, Faribault, and Pine Island. In every case, we’ve asked a judge to order the respective city and developer to go back and complete an environmental review of their respective data center proposal that meets our state’s requirements.
The inadequacy of the review of these proposals so far is deeply troubling because it means we could be building massive data centers without understanding how they will impact our aquifers and groundwater, our energy and mineral supplies, and our state’s climate goals. For example, developers behind the proposed data center in North Mankato said that the development could consume anywhere between 500,000 and 30 million gallons of water a day. That’s quite the range. If it ends up being the latter, it would dramatically increase annual water draws from the Mount Simon Hinckley Aquifer, potentially jeopardizing North Mankato’s drinking water supply. The City’s environmental review provided no analysis of that potential impact. Similarly, the environmental review of the Pine Island proposal shows a potential 50 percent jump over the city’s current water demand without analysis of the impact. In Faribault, developers dropped their proposed data center’s power usage estimate by a whopping 98 percent during the environmental review process without providing any explanation for the about-face. Examples like these go on and on.
Our environmental review laws were designed to prevent exactly that, which is why they are often described as Minnesota’s “look before you leap laws.” First, you study the proposed impacts of a development, then you decide whether it makes sense to build it. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening in these cities.
Can these data center proposals move forward while our lawsuits are pending?
Yes. Just filing a lawsuit does not mean a developer can’t move forward and build something, but they do so at their own risk. We can also file for an injunction—a court order temporarily suspending a project—if we suspect construction is imminent. So far, we haven’t had to do that.
One of the challenges here is that since data centers are new to Minnesota, there’s no “typical” protocol that we can count on these proposals to follow. We don’t really know what lies between environmental review and construction, as we often do with other kinds of projects. We also don’t know whether these will require special-use permits for water or other things, because these cities and developers either aren’t disclosing or don’t know what they are actually building. Our staff is monitoring each proposal closely, though, and we have legal strategies we can use–like filing an injunction–if that seems like our best strategy to protect Minnesotans and our resources.
It’s important to note, though, that our lawsuits are already having an effect. While it’s true that a lawsuit doesn’t automatically stop a project, they have helped raise public awareness across the state about the potential risks associated with data centers, especially when the proposals themselves are kept hidden behind NDAs. We’ve seen community groups organize in places like Hermantown and Pine Island to demand transparency from their City Councils. We’ve also seen some cities at least admit that their proposal in question is a data center, unlike in Lakeville and North Mankato.
Is MCEA doing anything else to address the environmental concerns surrounding data centers?
Our lawsuits are part of a broader organizational aim to protect Minnesota’s water, minerals, and clean energy goals from growth driven by data centers. These lawsuits get at that by trying to ensure that adequate environmental studies of these data center proposals take place before they are approved. That’s just part of the picture, though. Even with sufficient environmental review that lays out all the pertinent details of these proposed data centers and studies their potential impacts, Minnesota still doesn’t have the guardrails in place to manage those impacts or assess them from a statewide perspective. That’s where the Minnesota Legislature can come in. We’ll be advocating for common-sense data center legislation this session to address what didn’t get done last year, so stay tuned—we’ll need your help to get it done.
Speaking of community engagement, what other advice do you have for residents worried about a data center in their community?
Get involved and stay informed. Citizens have a right to information about what their government is doing, even when NDAs are being used. Go to City Council meetings, ask questions, and speak out. Like I said, there are also more and more community groups organizing around data centers, so look to them and follow their example. If we work together and stay diligent, we can get the information our laws entitle us to and that Minnesotans deserve. Then communities can decide for themselves whether these proposals are right for them.